It's Chaos Out There
by Karagor Gorefist
Summary: An Exalted Sorcerer is summoned to help an Imperial World stay out of the hands of Khorne. He summons his own cabal. The Loyalists don't appreciate that. Khorne doesn't like it. Tzeentch thinks it's great and Slaanesh is having a blast. It's Chaos out there. Literally.
1. Chapter 1

AN: I don't own 40K or any associated products. I did, however, create the original characters you will see.

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On the hiveworld of Celibae Secundus, the forces of Chaos were hard at work.

Dark priests, hidden deep in the underhives of the massive, continent spanning cities, brought about their ill intentions as they cast their eyes into the pool of blood. The crimson surface shimmered, spiraling and becoming a whirlpool in the shallow basin they had dug into the stone. One of their number began to panic as voices heard only to him began to cry out his name. Hands reached out of the portal, long and gaunt and ending in claws that gouged the stone as something inhuman tried to claw its way out of the portal, only to be ripped away from their purchase in the Materium and pulled back into the portal with a ghastly cry.

And then a figure rose from the swirling pool, standing higher than any of the men in the cavernous room. He was clad in armor, a matte grey with golden trim, and a number of horns wrapped around his helm from a strange sigil on his brow. Profane runes shimmered brightly in the metal, almost glowing with an ethereal light. He was armed just as heavily as he was armored, an Ætherflame Cannon on his spine and a strange sonic pistol on his hip with a mighty staff in one hand and a long dagger on his other hip. The mortals around the pool saw him rise, and immediately knelt as the portal closed beneath the fallen Astartes. Argorathrax inhaled deeply, the chemical stench of the hive world's retched, ultra-toxic waste burning into his suit's air filters. He eyed the frail and desperate men around him, smiling at their obvious fear and awe. It was only right, the ancient sorcerer decided, that they be given the courtesy of a thank you, for they had inadvertently freed him from one of Tzeentch's punishments. To be forced to wander endlessly in a desert filled with predators both natural and un, with only the accursed former Sister he once called apprentice for company. How Argorathrax wished he could just throttle her, make her beautiful face run purple before her head exploded in his hands like-

"By the power of Tzeentch, I bind you, daemon!"

The Astartes felt the clamp of magic reach for him, breaking him from his musings. He reached to it with his mind, and followed the link back to a man who stood differently from the others, an opulently robed figure in gold and saffron robes that regarded him with an arrogant and disdainful eye.

Argorothrax tilted his head, and the man flew away as telekinetic power wrapped around him and bodily threw him to the ceiling. To bind him, the sorcerer known once as Anu'thoth of the Raptora Cult? The fallen Son of Magnus chuckled as he turned to the next man.

"You have summoned me here for a purpose. I am called Argorathrax, son of Magnus. What is your will?"

Silence reigned, before one of the other men stepped forward and spoke confidently.

"High King Tiranath has turned from the light of the God-Emperor, slaughtering our people in the name of sport. He has turned the city above into a war zone, and the Imperium has forsaken us in turn. I, WE, we beg of you, save us!"

Argorathrax was silent as he stared at the man, his dusty flesh crawling over itself inside of his armor. He reached out with his mind, casting his consciousness to the surface world. The hive cities had fallen to wanton bloodshed, and a civil war raged rampantly above his head. He chuckled, and faced the man who spoke.

"Very well. I shall summon my own cabal to aid me in this venture."

The men nodded vigorously, relieved at his acceptance. The priestly man that had been thrown to the ceiling then fell, Argorathrax mentally throwing his perforated body into the pool of blood as he began to speak the Black Tongue. The veil of reality shifted, the ground writhing under his feet as he pulled the life-giving energy of the planet from it. The man once known as Anu'thoth rose his staff, and smote the ground. The cavern wall nearest to him split open, reality sundering at his will. From the crack in both stone and space, a band of humans and daemons alike strode out, led by a woman in revealing armor that clutched what looked to have been a full person strewn over a massive cannon. Her purple eyes were glinting with desire as she bit her lip, the inhuman beauty staring at the man who'd called her here. Beside her stalked a snarling man with black eyes, as large as Argorathrax in his own armor, with brass arms and armor as red as blood over his chest and legs. The final touch was a thin woman, frail and haggard looking. Her beauty was faded, lank black locks falling over her glassy green eyes as she smiled a motherly smile at the sorcerer as he spoke.

"Thaena, Karagôr, Ithra. Welcome to Celibae Secundus. I do believe it is the perfect place to host this grand gathering."

The sickly woman coughed violently, and spoke, her voice hoarse and unused.

"It will be a lovely place to spread Father's love..."

She doubled over and vomited, a bright green goo that quickly rose into the diseased form of a Nurgling. Karagôr eyes her with disgust before he spoke, thick Terran accent, reminding Argorathrax of the World Eater's brother, Khârn, rumbling as he did. Contempt layered his words, even as he glared at his cousin.

"You haf mentioned dis gadering before... Must it include dese two?"

Argorathrax chuckled and shrugged at his gene-cousin, and the woman known as Ithra cooed in the background to her beloved familiar, uncaring of the boils and lesions dancing across her flesh as she nuzzled the little beast and let it lick her face.

The Slaaneshi former Sister of Battle spoke next, raising her sonic cannon up onto her shoulder with ease and grinning.

"It's wonderful to see you again, master. You were so creative, leaving me to be gnawed on by that tree whilst you came here..."

Argorathrax quietly wished it had finished the job, but diligently ignored his apprentice. Behind them, an army of the shambling corpses of all manner of beings and lumbering beasts of Nurgle, courtesy of Ithra and her penchant for the necromantic arts, began to pour into real space. The living still near the quartet fled into their homes as the massive beasts began to rampage with the intention of playing, bringing unspeakable diseases with them and forever tainting the ground they trampled over.

"There is plenty of excitement on the surface. I'm sure you can find some manner of enjoying yourselves. Rest for now, prepare yourselves. We will attack the surface in an hour, to take it for Chaos."

The trio of newcomers laughed, and went their separate ways to bring Chaos to this world...


	2. Chapter 2

AN: I don't own 40K or any associated products. I did, however, create the original characters you will see.

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Ithra the Blightsinger

"Find them."

Ithra smiled, her rotten yellow teeth gleaming in the darkness as her cracked lips split apart. The heavy footfalls in the hallway were drawing closer, a squad of Arbites that had fallen to the madness unleashed on Celibae Secundus were hunting her. It sent a shiver through her emaciated frame, something resembling excitement.

The door beside her was kicked in, and Ithra lunged. Her form spoke nothing of her speed and strength, and with black saliva pooling in her jaws, she pulled the first Arbitrator into the room and lunges for her neck. The human woman screamed as the black saliva dissolved what little armor was around her throat in a mere moment, and Ithra silenced her as her teeth tore into human flesh and tearing free the bloody white cartilage of the woman's windpipe. Screams became gasping gurgles, and black lines began to spread through her veins.

Ithra raised up and lunged at the next Arbitrator in line, only for him to raise his shotgun and squeeze the trigger.

Pellets entered her side and tore a chunk of her body free, but Ithra felt none of it. She rolled as the force of the blast threw her back and grinned. The faraway look in her glazed eyes faded, and the Arbitrator shivered as an unnatural odor began to fill the room. He looked down in disgust and horror, watchingthe flesh of the fallen woman become entirely black, and her body began to swell and boil.

His distraction cost him, as Ithra shoved a hand into her own mouth and gagged. Bile rose in her throat, and Ithra vomited a mix of blood and black sludge at the man, who jerked out of the way. The Arbiter behind him was not so fortunate, and took the projectile to the face. Boils and lesions crawled out of his flesh, his armor corroding and turning red with rust as his hoarse screams rent the air and just as quickly fell silent. A bleached white skull fell to the floor, and his body followed next, thudding with a great metallic bang, like the footfall of an Astartes.

Ithra opened her mouth, and a black sigil burned onto her throat as she cried out in song. The lone Arbitrator froze as an ethereal power washed over him, and the haunted melody of her wordless tune sent a chill deep into the very core of his soul.

Something grasped his ankle, and the man looked down to see the remains of his comrades beginning to stir. Terror struck him with all the force of a Volcano Cannon shot, and the groans of the dead filled the air as he tugged his ankle as hard as he could and emptied a slug into the corpse's arm, freeing himself from the blighted thing's grasp. Every corpse her song touched began to shiver, her tune carving eddies in the Immaterium as she performed her art.

She vomited onto the ground, her song coming to an end as the dead returned to serve her and her dark patron. From it, a little green thing, like some great collection of mucus had been given rotten fangs and a repugnant odor and sentience to match, rose from the bile, dragging with it a great, rusted hammer the size of the frail woman it loved so dearly. Ithra took the rotted shaft in her hands and heaved, pulling the hammer around. Strength found her aching bones as she felt the caress of her beloved father on her back, boils forming and bursting, leaking a malodorous and iridescent pus through her sackcloth dress, and Ithra swung the hammer. There was a crack of thunder, and the final Arbiter was reduced to a smear on the wall, the once holy weapon of an Astartes smashing him to a fine, red paste.

Ithra smiled, and began to sing another tune as she dragged the hammer behind her, walking down the hall. An army massed behind her, shambling corpses of men and women and children and babes, and Ithra only smiled as a Nurgling crawled into her arms and latched onto her teat. She cooed at it softly, as if they were mother and son, and not slave and familiar. But Ithra loved her beloved child and her gracious father. He saved her from the torment of her life, and returned her baby boy to her. She had traded beauty and riches and lands for her love, and she would give all the souls in the universe to protect the little one drinking the foul, rotted milk from her breast.

It was her duty as a mother and a Daughter of Nurgle.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: I don't own 40K or any associated products. I did, however, create the original characters you will see.

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Karagôr the Gorewalker

He could not see them in the traditional sense of the word. No, Karagôr saw only in shades of red now. The eyes he had torn from the Daemon that had gouged his own out now served him as his own, differently yet the same. In some ways, they proved to be a hinderance. In others, he mused as he stepped around the wild stab of a terrified PDF Conscript, they served all he needed them to serve. His brass fists, coated from fingers to elbow in a strange brass metal that seemed almost malevolent, lashed out, tearing through flesh and ceramite armor to grip the spinal cord of the poor human that dared strike at him, and inhuman strength crushed bone and cartilage to a strange, powdery gelatinous mush, before the boy, no older than twenty standard Terran years, was ripped in half by the cursed might of the daemon-slaying warrior before him.

Karagôr stood head and shoulders above these puny mortals. In all his nearly eleven thousand years, he had found nothing more despicable than these weak humans that were left behind to defend their home.

His skull began to burn suddenly, an ancient copy of an even more archaic technology daring to impose its own will upon his, and Karagôr roared his fury as his crimson vision blotted out and became nothing but red.

Blood stung at his eyes, a minor pain compared to the Nails burning their fury into his brain matter, and he pressed his metal hands into them to wipe the liquid away. He was surrounded by corpses, drenched in blood and wearing the skulls of a few humans around his neck, hung by sinew and flesh. Three had apparently given some form of entertainment to him in his berserk state, evidenced by the slowly closing wounds he could feel on his neck and gut. One was particularly stubborn about healing, his flesh seared beneath his navel and blackened. A lasbolt had struck him, it seemed. Had he been a mere Astartes, it might have been debilitating, and certainly fatal if he had been a mere mortal.

Karagôr growled, and the blood pooling at his feet trembled. A serpentine canine with brass armor and a black collar around its neck leapt from the pool, clutching a black blade in its mouth. The hound was huge, equal to a particularly large Grox in size, and blazing red eyes stared at Karagôr with amusement and rage in equal parts.

They said nothing, but the duo looked around as more forces began to surround them. The heavy treads of Leman Russ tanks filled the former World Eater's ears, and he grinned at his companion with a challenge in his eyes.

"F-freeze! We have you surrounded!"

The hulking Astartes inhaled slowly, and smiled. He could smell it, but even a mortal could pick up on the man's terror. Eyes like burning globs of magma glared at the man, and Karagôr turned to face him with his body.

"All you have done, human, is proven yourself an insect."

Karagôr moved, and the tanks(Leman Russ Obliterators, he noted with a cruel glint in his eyes) fired as one. The spot he'd just been stood in was suddenly gone, the relatively fragile permacrete vaporized with a single explosion. Karagôr landed atop one of the tanks, and slammed a fist through the thick hatch protecting the commander. The sound of screaming metal rent the air and Karagôr bled as the sharp edges tore his flesh where the brass of his arms ended, but he gripped his prey by the throat and ripped his arm upwards.

Human bones and flesh gave before the hatch did, and the tank commander was pulled as the ancient being tried in vain to force his corpse through an arm sized hole.

Karagôr dropped the corpse as the tanks fired again, and smiled. He'd not had so much fun in ages, and it was all because the eight-times damned sorcerer had sought a little party.

Perhaps the Gorewalker would attend the next one too, if it brought this much fun.


End file.
